The Northern Advocate SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1913. THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES.

Northern Advocate, 6 September 1913, Page 4

The Northern Advocate SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1913. THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES.

Half paralysed though the Conservative party in England appears to be, it nevertheless contains a leven of earnest, capable adherents, who must inevitably exercise a powerful influence over the political thought and action of the party in years to come. This section is composed of men like Lord Hugh Cecil and Lord Milner, who while out of touch with modern Radicalism, are sufficiently keen-visaged to see that the old Conservative ideal and the new Conservative nostrums are alike incompatible with present-day democracy. It is true that most of the members of this advanced wing of the Unionist army are given toanirritatingly vague though copious form of speech about "the Empire," and to what seems like a desire to use the Imperial sentiment for the mere purpose of political aggrandisement, but it is also true that they appreciate very thoroughly the hopelessness of Conservative doctrine as applied to the problems confronting the statesmanship of to-day, and are prepared to commit themselves to policies which a few years ago it was fashionable to regard as symptomatic of a reckless anarchism. In the case of Lord Milner we have a convinced Imperialist and a determined advocate of national military service, yet he is almost as much in favour of an agrarian revolution as Mr Lloyd George, talks as indulgently about socialism as Mr Ramsay MacDonald, and is as keen a supporter of the right to work as Mr Keir Hardie. Indeed in the speeches of no man now playing a prominent part in the political drama is the revulsion against the dogma of laisser-faire expressed with greater directness and uncompromising hostility. Quite lately there has been published a. series of selections from the speeches and addresses of Lord Milner, and it is quite probable that to many good people into whose hands the volume may fall his frankly expressed contempt for the official attitude of the iparty he has been identified with so long will come as something more than a mild surprise. "I am unable," we find him writing, "to join I in the hue and cry against socialism. I

Mere fidelity to the Eighth Commandment is not a constructive policy, and socialism is not necessarily synonymous with robbery. Correctly used, the word signifies a particular view of the proper relation of the State to its citizens. The revolutionary socialist is going too far; but what gave birth to his doctrine? The abuse of the rights of private property, the cruelty and the failure of the scramble for gain, which mark the reign of a one-sided Individualism. If we had not gone much too far in one direction we should not have had this extravagant reaction on the other. While resisting the revolutionary propaganda let us be more, not less, strenuous in removing the causes of it." When we find a man with the weight and authority among Unionists of Lord Milner associating himself to doctrines of this character it seems scarcely possible to take very seriously the frantic appeals made to the electors by other prominent men in the ranks of Conservatism to resist the almost universal demand for such socialistic innovations as the minimum wage and diminution of the hours of labour. There is, of course, a rather definite affinity between the Tory and the socialist, conception of the State's authority, and the time may not perhaps be very distant when these ideas may be utilised for practical purposes by some later day Disraeli, willing, as Lord Milner now appears to be, to abandon, if not the spirit, at anyrate the form of his party formula.